Go and lie down in the dark... for hours... and don't move. I'm locking the door now

I've got better things to do than read rubbish about myself.

I'm a vegetarian, well I'm not hardcore because I eat meat, but only because I like the taste, and I hate vegetables on a personal level so I'm not too good!

We are both drawn to surreal situations so the writing was a joy.

People do need a social license to go, "Ha ha ha," and have a good time. It's a strange thing. There's a lot of social ritual around comedy and laughter. It's a bonding experience for groups, but nobody can tell you much about how funny somebody is. Sometimes people just need to be in a group and be laughing together, just like they need to be in a group in watching some really terrifying film.

A lot of the fiction I read growing up was post-war American, and not all of it centers on Manhattan, but around people of the Mad Men generation, people like John Cheever and, in more modern times, Don DeLillo, who I always mention.

I'm fascinated by how you'll change your position so many times over a lifetime, but really what you're doing is occupying a series of positions on a landscape.